‘Avatar’ is the most satanic film Mark Driscoll has ever seen

Mark Driscoll thinks so. In fact, the founder of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church told his congregation last Sunday that the highest grossing movie of all time is “the most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen.”

If you follow local theological circles, you know Driscoll is something of a superstar among national evangelical leaders. Or at least, he’s someone to watch.

Driscoll helped build the popular Mars Hill Church into one of the most talked about evangelical mega-churches in the country, despite its home at the heart of a secular stronghold. That distinction, combined with his church’s culturally savvy but socially and theologically conservative views, gives him significant weight in religious debate.

Though his “Avatar” comments made up just a fraction of the Feb. 14 sermon, Driscoll managed to condemn the film in both religious and nonreligious terms. He denounced its “demonic paganism,” but also a message that “primitive is good and advanced is bad.” He resented its portrayal of a “false Jesus” and a “false heaven,” but also the idea of “connecting, literally, with trees and animals and beasts and birds.”

His main objection appears to be that “Avatar” preaches a worship of “created things” rather than the creator. Of nature rather than God.

In that, Driscoll sees demons. And demons — to him as to many Christians — are as common as weeds.

“['Avatar'] is new age, satanic, demonic paganism, and people are just stunned by the visuals,” he said. “Well, the visuals are amazing because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with a lie.”

Art critic and religion writer Menachem Wecker took Driscoll to task for his comments on the Houston Chronicle Web site Wednesday.

“I don’t think that Driscoll is correct that the Na’vi are demonic or that the film is demonic. If anything, Avatar should be applauded for celebrating a spiritual approach to life,” he wrote.

But I think Driscoll would stick to his point.

“Spirituality is demonology,” Driscoll said earlier in the sermon. “Just because it is spiritual does not mean it is good.”

Read the “Avatar” segment of the sermon below. See it on pages 4 and 5 of the PDF of his sermon here. If you’d like to watch, Driscoll begins speaking about it at 17:02 in this video, and in the YouTube video at the bottom of this post:

The world tempts you to sin, to use people, to disobey God, to live for your own glory instead of his own, to be a consumer instead of generous, that’s the world system.

And if you don’t believe me, go see Avatar, the most demonic, satanic film I’ve ever seen. That any Christian could watch that without seeing the overt demonism is beyond me. I logged on to christianitytoday.com and the review was reflective of Christianity today, very disappointing. See, in that movie, it is a completely false ideology, it’s a sermon preached. It’s the most popular movie ever made, and it tells you that the creation mandate, the cultural mandate is bad, that we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t develop culture, that’s a bad thing.

Primitive is good and advanced is bad and that we’re not sinners, we’re just disconnected from the divine life force, just classic, classic, classic paganism, that human beings are to connect, literally, with trees and animals and beasts and birds and that there’s this spiritual connection that we’re all a part of, that we’re all a part of the divine.

It presents a false mediator with a witch. It presents false worship of created things rather than Creator God in absolute antithesis to Romans 1:25, which gives that as the essence of paganism. It has a false incarnation where a man comes in to be among a people group and to assume their identity. It’s a false Jesus. We have a false resurrection. We have a false savior. We have a false heaven. The whole thing is new age, satanic, demonic paganism, and people are just stunned by the visuals. Well, the visuals are amazing because Satan wants you to emotionally connect with a lie.